I'm pretty flabbergasted about the McDonald's Twitter fiasco that happened last week. As this article points out, it's sooo easy for social media campaigns to be taken over/ co-opted by people who have an axe to grind with the sponsoring firms. Consumers have power -- lots and lots of power (even if that power is just a loud voice, or lots of voices)!
Two other famous examples of firms having social media go the wrong way for them:
Chevy Tahoe (2006)
and Nestle (2010).
Something interesting that I noticed about the headlines for the McD's story is how many of them used the word "hijack" to describe the consumer response. I don't think that handing the keys to someone and telling him/her to take a spin can be considered "hijacking," even if the driver decides to crash your car... on purpose.
Image sources:
http://static7.businessinsider.com/image/4f21ede3ecad042e63000004/twitter-mouth-taped.jpg
http://matthewbywater.squarespace.com/storage/nestle-on-facebook.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1315806918821
http://www.carinsurancecomparisonsites.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/new-car-handing-over-keys-300x199.jpg
1 comment:
Wow! That McDonalds article is very interesting. I have a twitter account (I use very rarely-mainly to follow celebrities), but some people can say some crazy things online. It's pretty incredible how much power the consumers have in this case, if I worked for McDonalds campaign, I would definitely get rid of that hashtag.
As far as the Nestle conversation on facebook goes, that is also pretty unbelievable. Easy to lose customers when you can't respond positively!
Post a Comment